Let's Bring Back Play
Rediscovering active play as a pillar of development for children and teens
We tend to think of play as frivolous, but play is a highly evolved and intricate form of behaviour that serves many functions. Like other juvenile mammals, kids have an intrinsic drive to play and engaging in play is inherently pleasurable and rewarding. Not only is play a characteristic feature of behaviour across species, but there is even brain circuitry dedicated to play, all of which speaks to its significance. Play is integral to the developmental process in children and teens, so the fact that there has been a consistent decline in active play in general and unsupervised outdoor free play in particular over recent decades presents a major problem. It is vitally important that we recognise the vital role that play serves in developing well-adjusted kids and the negative consequences when kids are not fully able to satisfy their need for play. Once we understand what kids are missing out on we can take steps to reverse these trends and bring back play.
One of the defining characteristics of play is exploration. As well as exploring the world around us, play allows us to investigate what our body is capable of. Engaging in play enables kids to adjust and recalibrate as the body grows and changes over time. Part of play is experimenting with different ways of doing things and exploring the growing range of possibilities that open up as their capacities and capabilities develop throughout the childhood and adolescent years.
Play is inherently interactive. By playing kids discover the possibilities for interacting with objects and features of the environment. This includes exploring the boundaries of what is safe and discovering potential threats and so play is central to how we learn to navigate and manage risk. The trend towards safetyism has led to the elimination of apparent risks and dangers from play environments and worse still kids are increasingly restricted from playing unsupervised at all. Whilst well-meaning and eminently understandable, this is misguided as it removes the opportunity for learning how to recognise and mitigate risks. Ultimately this renders kids less capable of dealing with risk and more anxious as a result. There has been some acknowledgement of these unintended consquences in public health circles, including calls to reintroduce risky outdoor play to redress the balance.
Play is a big part of how kids acquire the gross motor skills concerned with moving and manipulating the body (the foundations of athleticism), as well as the fine motor skills and dexterity involved with handling and manipulating objects (such as a ball and other implements). Operating within the rules of the game necessarily means voluntarily accepting certain constraints on our behaviour and so play also teaches kids self-restraint. In the process, kids acquire a sense of fair play, so there is a moral aspect to play.
Playing fair and abiding by the rules naturally becomes all the more important when others are involved. Exploring the possibilities for interaction and the boundaries for behaviour thus extends to other people. Figuring out how to play nicely with others not only means establishing the rules of the game but also the etiquette of how to engage with the other players. Play is entered into voluntarily - which means that others must choose to play with us. In order to participate kids must learn to cooperate and compete in a way that others find acceptable. Competitive play also means learning how to win and lose, whilst conducting ourselves in a way that makes others want to play with us again.
The social aspect of group play is hugely significant from a developmental perspective. Successfully engaging in play with others requires reciprocity, which means being attentive to the other players and responding appropriately. Through this back and forth kids learn to gauge what others find tolerable and within bounds of acceptable behaviour. Play is accordingly central to the socialisation process in kids.
Social play is crucial for healthy psychosocial development, especially in boys. As in other mammalian species, social play seems to be indispensible for juvenile males, whereas young females are better able to make do with other forms of social interaction. In particular, play serves a hugely important role in learning how to regulate physical aggression and exercise restraint. Without sufficient opportunity to engage in play, boys are accordingly more likely to exhibit behavioural issues.
Play helps children and teens to learn how to navigate social settings. Social play teaches kids how to modulate their behaviour and conduct themselves in a way that is appropriate to a given context. This includes reading social cues and non-verbal communication. For instance, kids learn to tailor their conduct to different play partners, including adapting their play behaviour to members of the same sex versus the opposite sex.
Kids are naturally inclined to play - what is typically lacking and what we need to take steps to ensure is that they are afforded the opportunity. Among the challenges is a lack of free time, as kids’ lives become more heavily scheduled and the hours left over are increasingly spent online (‘moderate’ screen time equates to 4 hours each day in studies of children and adolescents). Clearly we need to make some room and while this may require some encouragement and facilitation initially, not least as it’s likely to involve some restrictions on use of electronic devices, it is equally important that the grown-ups know when to step back and leave the kids to organise themselves.
Play is an inherent feature of sport - indeed, sport is fundamentally a type of play - so participating in sport is an obvious way to fulfil the need for play, especially as children become older. However, one issue that we too often run into with organised youth sports is that the element of play is squeezed out, especially when it comes to supervised practices. This not only makes participating less enjoyable and less rewarding, but is also not conducive from a coaching or performance perspective.
If we want to encourage kids to participate in sport then appealing to their natural desire to play seems a good way to proceed. From a coaching perspective, kids not only learn and acquire skills through play but it is also essentially the only way to develop game sense. Another hallmark of play is problem-solving and so play helps young athletes to learn how to respond to different situations and become adaptable. Play fosters creativity: through playing with different ideas we come up with novel solutions. For these reasons, unsupervised play is a key component for developing talent.
As coaches, parents and teachers we need to ensure and facilitate opportunities for unsupervised active play alongside their supervised sports activities. In the context of organised sport, from both a participation and talent development perspective we need to keep practice and competition playful! Even when implementing drills, we should seek to conserve an element of play. This does not necessarily mean that everything has to be made into a game (although games certainly have their place), but the structure of practice should afford some opportunity to explore, experiment, discover and problem-solve.